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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


BEQUEST 

OF 

ANITA  D.  S.  BLAKE 


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ADDRESS 


DELIVERED  BY 


Mr.  JAMES  J.  HILL 

AT  THE 

NATIONAL 
CONSERVATION  CONGRESS 

St.  Paul,  Minnesota 


SEPTEMBER  5-9,  1910. 


GIFT 


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Digitizediby  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressaOOhillrich 


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ADDRESS  DEUVERED  BY 

MR.  JAMES  J.  HILL 

AT  THE 

NATIONAL  CONSERVATION  CONGRESS 
SAINT  PAUL,  MINNESOTA 

SEPTEMBER  5-9,  1910 


Every  movement  that  affects  permanently  a  na- 
tion's life  passes  through  three  stages.  First  it  is 
the  abstract  idea,  understood  by  few.  Next  it  is 
the  subject  of  agitation  and  earnest  general  discus- 
sion. Third,  after  it  has  w^on  its  w^ay  to  a  sure  place 
in  the  national  life,  comes  the  era  of  practical  adap- 
tation. Mistakes  and  extravagances  due  to  the 
enthusiasm  of  friends  or  the  malice  of  enemies  are 
corrected,  details  are  fitted  to  actual  needs,  the 
divine  idea  is  harnessed  to  the  common  needs  of 
man.  In  this  stage,  which  the  conservation  move- 
ment has  now  reached,  the  most  difficult  and  im- 
portant work  must  be  done. 

In  our  own  history  and  in  that  of  other  nations 
we  have  seen  this  process  many  times  repeated. 
Public  education  was  an  abstract  idea  in  the  time 
of  Plato,  a  controversy  of  the  Renaissance,  and  is 
still  only  partly  realized.  Back  of  all  written  rec- 
ords lived  the  man  who  first  saw  a  vision  of  gov- 
ernment universal,  equal,  free  and  just.     But  the 

1 


world  has  not  yet  achieved  the  final  adaptation 
of  this  mighty  conception  to  man  as  we  find  him. 
Democracy  is  still  in  the  fighting  stage. 

Only  a  few  years  have  passed  since  it  first  dawned 
upon  a  people  who  had  reveled  in  plenty  for  a  cent- 
ur}^  that  the  richest  patrimony  is  not  proof  against 
constant  and  careless  waste;  that  a  nation  of  spend- 
ers must  take  thought  for  its  morrow  or  come  to 
poverty.  The  first  actual  conservation  work  of  this 
government  was  done  in  forestry,  following  the 
example  of  European  countries.  It  soon  became 
evident  that  our  mineral  resources  should  receive 
equal  though  less  urgent  care.  The  supreme  im- 
portance of  conserving  the  most  important  re- 
source of  all,  the  wealth  of  the  soil  itself,  was 
realized.  In  an  address  delivered  four  years  ago 
this  month  before  the  Agricultural  Society  of  this 
state,  I  first  stated  fully  the  problem  that  we  have 
to  meet  and  the  method  of  its  solution.  With  their 
great  capacity  for  assimilating  a  new  and  valid 
thought,  the  people  of  this  country  were  soon  in- 
terested. Belief  in  a  comprehensive  system  of  con- 
servation of  all  resources  has  now  taken  posses- 
sion of  the  public  mind.  What  remains  to  be  done 
is  that  most  difficult  of  all  the  tasks  of  statesman- 
ship— the  application  of  an  accepted  principle  and 
making  it  conform  in  all  its  general  outlines  to 
the  common  good. 

To  pack  the  fact  into  a  single  statement,  the 
need  of  the  hour  and  the  end  to  which  this  con- 
gress should  devote  itself  is  to  conserve  conserva- 
tion. It  has  come  into  that  peril  which  no  great 
truth  escapes, — the  danger  that  lurks  in  the  house 
of  its  friends.  It  has  been  used  to  forward  that 
serious  error  of  policy,  the  extension  of  the  powers 
and  activities  of  the  national  government  at  the 


expense  of  those  of  the  states.  The  time  is  ripe  and 
this  occasion  is  most  fitting  for  distinguishing  be- 
tween real  and  fanciful  conservation,  and  for  estab- 
lishing a  sound  relation  of  means  to  ends. 

We  should  first  exclude  certain  activities  that 
come  only  indirectly  under  the  term,  "conserva- 
tion.'' The  reclamation  service  is  one.  Its  work  is 
not  preservation,  but  ultilization.  The  arid  lands 
of  this  country  have  been  where  they  now  are,  the 
streams  have  flowed  past  them  uselessly  ever  since 
Adam  and  Eve  were  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Irri- 
gation was  practiced  in  prehistoric  time.  What  we 
have  to  do  is  to  bring  modern  methods  to  the  aid 
of  one  of  the  oldest  agricultural  arts.  It  is  men- 
tioned here  because  its  progress  illustrates  the 
dangers  that  beset  conservation  projects  proper. 

They  are  dangers  inseparable  from  national  con- 
trol and  conduct  of  affairs.  The  machine  is  too  big 
and  too  distant;  its  operation  is  slow,  cumbrous  and 
costly.  So  slow  is  it  that  settlers  are  waiting  in 
distress  for  water  promised  long  ago.  So  faulty  has 
been  the  adjustment  of  time  and  money  that  con- 
gress has  had  to  authorize  the  issue  of  $20,000,000 
of  national  obligations  to  complete  projects  still 
hanging  in  the  air.  So  expensive  is  it  that  estimates 
have  been  exceeded  again  and  again.  The  settler 
has  had  either  to  pay  more  than  the  cost  figure  he 
relied  on  or  seek  cheaper  land  in  Canada.  It  costs 
the  government  from  50  per  cent  more  to  twice 
as  much  as  it  would  private  enterprise  to  put  water 
on  the  land.  Under  the  Lower  Yellowstone  project 
the  charge  is  $42.50  per  acre,  and  one  dollar  per 
acre  annually  for  maintenance.  The  Sunnyside 
project  carries  a  charge  of  $52  per  acre,  and  95 
cents  maintenance.  Under  the  North  Platte  pro- 
ject the  charge  is  $45  per  acre,  plus  a  maintenance 


charge  not  announced.  These  projects,  in  widely 
separated  localities,  entail  a  land  charge  prohibitive 
to  the  frontier  settlers  to  provide  homes  for  those 
for  whom  this  work  was  believed  to  have  been  un- 
dertaken. The  pioneer  settler  who  can  pay,  even  in 
ten  annual  instalments,  from  $3,500  to  $4,000  for 
eighty  acres  of  land,  in  addition  to  the  yearly  fee 
per  acre,  must  have  some  other  resources  to  aid 
him.  The  work  of  irrigation  would  have  been  more 
cheaply  done  if  turned  over  to  private  enterprise 
or  committed  to  the  several  states  within  which 
lie  the  lands  to  be  reclaimed.  This  is  not  a  criticism 
upon  any  individual.  It  is  merely  one  more  proof 
of  the  excessive  cost  of  government  work. 

Toward  the  conservation  of  our  mineral  resources 
little  can  be  done  by  federal  action.  The  output  is 
determined  not  by  the  mine  owner,  but  by  the  con- 
sumer. The  withdrawal  of  vast  areas  of  supposed 
coal  lands  tends  to  increase  price  by  restricting  the 
area  of  possible  supply.  Nor  can  such  deposits  be 
utilized  eventually  except  under  some  such  system 
as  is  now  employed.  It  is  foolish  to  talk  of  leasing 
coal  lands  in  small  quantities  in  order  to  prevent 
monopoly.  Mining  must  be  carried  on  upon  a  large 
enough  scale  to  be  commercially  possible.  The 
lessee  of  a  small  area  could  not  afford  to  instal  the 
necessary  machinery  and  provide  means  of  trans- 
portation without  charging  for  the  product  a  pro- 
hibitory price.  Under  such  conditions  the  coal 
would  remain  in  the  ground  indefinitely.  The  peo- 
ple of  the  West  see  little  practical  difference  be- 
tween a  resource  withheld  entirely  from  use  and  a 
resource  dissipated  or  exhausted.  They  understand 
by  conservation  the  most  economical  development 
and  best  care  of  resources.    It  is  the  onlv  definition 


consistent  with  the  natural  growth  of  communities 
in  the  history  of  the  civiHzed  world. 

The  prairie  states  are  more  interested  than  any 
other  in  the  question  of  cheap  fuel.  We  do  not 
depend  upon  Alaska  for  our  future  supply.  There 
is  abundant  coal  on  the  Pacific  Coast  nearer  to 
our  seaports  and  commercial  centers.  Vancouver 
Island  is  underlaid  with  it.  To  say  nothing  of  Nova 
Scotia  on  the  Eastern  coast,  there  is  coal  in  Spitz- 
bergen,  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  actually  nearer  our 
Eastern  markets  than  the  coal  of  Alaska.  While 
we  lament  the  exhaustion  of  our  coal  supply,  we 
maintain  a  tariff  that  compels  us  to  draw  upon  it 
continuously.  It  would  be  well  to  cast  out  this 
beam  before  we  worry  too  much  over  the  conser- 
vation mote. 

The  iron  deposits  of  Minnesota,  the  most  won- 
derful in  the  world,  are  today  not  only  furnishing 
industry  in  the  nation  with  its  raw  material  but  are 
piling  up  a  school  fund  at  home  that  is  the  envy 
of  other  states  and  adding  more  and  more  every 
year  to  the  contents  of  the  state's  treasury.  Minne- 
sota is  considering  the  reduction  of  her  general 
tax  levy  by  one  half.  Would  it  be  better  if  these 
lands  were  today  held  idle  and  unproductive  by 
the  federal  government,  or  worked  only  on  leases 
whose  proceeds  went  into  the  federal  treasury  and 
enabled  congress  to  squander  a  few  more  millions 
in  annual  appropriations? 

Against  some  forestry  theories  the  West  enters 
an  even  stronger  plea.  What  the  United  States 
needs  is  neither  reckless  destruction  nor  an  em- 
bargo upon  our  splendid  Western  commonwealths 
by  locking  up  a  considerable  portion  of  their  avail- 
able area.  There  were,  by  the  last  report  of  the 
Forestry  Service,  over  194,500,000  acres  withdrawn 


from  use  in  our  forest  reserves  on  June  30,  1909. 
Of  this,  nearly  58  per  cent,  over  112,000,000  acres, 
or  175,000  square  miles,  lies  in  six  Western  states. 
That  is  an  area  six-sevenths  the  size  of  Germany 
or  France.  It  is  80  per  cent  of  the  size  of  the 
unappropriated  and  unreserved  land  in  those  six 
states. 

The  forest  reserves  and  the  lands  conveyed  by 
congressional  grants  to  private  interests  in  Oregon 
amount  to  some  50,000  square  miles.  More  than 
half  the  area  of  this  great  state  has  been  with- 
draw^n  by  action  of  the  government  in  one  v^ay 
or  another  from  cultivation  and  the  enjoyment  and 
profit  of  the  people  of  the  state.  Over  one-third  of 
Idaho  and  27  per  cent  of  Washington  are  forest 
reserves.  Colorado  is  almost  as  badly  off;  and  not 
more  than  30  per  cent  of  its  forest  reserves  is  cov- 
ered writh  merchantable  timber,  while  about  40  per 
cent  has  no  timber  at  all.  On  the  Olympic  penin- 
sula are  lands  reported  to  be  w^ithdrav^n  to  conserve 
our  w^ater  supply  w^here  the  annual  rainfall  amounts 
to  something  like  seven  to  ten  feet.  According  to 
the  official  report,  the  cost  of  administering  the 
forest  service  in  1909  vv^as  a  little  short  of  three 
million  dollars,  and  the  receipts  were  eighteen  hun- 
dred thousand.  The  deficit  on  current  account 
alone  was  over  $1,100,000.  The  total  disbursements 
were  over  $4,400,000,  and  the  actual  deficit  $2,600,- 
000.  The  forestry  service  has  over  2,000  employes. 
In  1909  they  planted  611  acres  and  sowed  1,126 
acres  more.  The  West  believes  in  forest  preserva- 
tion. But  it  believes  practically  and  not  theoreti- 
cally. It  realizes  that  a  good  thing  may  cost  too 
much,  and  is  not  ignorant  of  the  extravagant  finan- 
cial tendency  of  every  federal  department  and 
bureau.     It  wants  all  good  agricultural  land  open 


to  the  settler,  wherever  it  may  be  situated.  It  wants 
timber  resources  conservatively  utilized,  and  not 
wasted  or  destroyed. 

In  connection  with  forestry  interests  there  is  just 
now  much  question  of  the  conservation  of  water 
power  sites.  The  demand  is  that  federal  lands 
forming  such  sites  should  be  withdrawn  and  leased 
for  the  profit  and  at  the  pleasure  of  the  federal  gov- 
ernment. Against  this  the  whole  West  rightly  pro- 
tests. The  water  power  differs  from  the  coal  de- 
posit in  that  it  is  not  destroyed  by  use.  It  will  do 
its  undiminished  work  as  long  as  the  rains  fall  and 
the  snows  melt.  Not  the  resource  but  the  use  of 
it  is  a  proper  subject  for  conservation  and  regu- 
lation. To  withdraw  these  sources  of  potential 
wealth  from  present  utilization  is  to  take  just  so 
much  from  the  industrial  capital  of  the  states  in 
which  they  are  situated. 

The  attempted  federal  control  of  water  powers  is 
illegal,  because  the  use  of  the  waters  within  a  state 
is  the  property  of  the  state  and  cannot  be  taken 
from  it,  and  that  the  state  may  and  actually  does, 
in  the  case  of  Idaho  for  example,  perfectly  safe- 
guard its  water  powers  from  monopoly  and  make 
them  useful  without  extortion,  has  been  shown 
conclusively  by  Senator  Borah  in  a  speech  in  the 
United  States  Senate  in  which  this  whole  subject 
is  admirably  covered.  Back  in  our  history  beyond 
the  memory  of  most  men  now  living  there  was 
the  same  controversy  over  the  public  domain. 
Ought  it  to  be  administered  by  the  government  and 
disposed  of  for  its  profit,  or  opened  to  the  people 
and  shared  with  the  states?  Let  experience  deter- 
mine which  was  the  better  guardian.  The  worst 
scandals  of  state  land  misappropriation,  and  there 
w^ere  many,  are  insignificant  when  compared  with 


the  record  of  the  nation.  The  total  cash  receipts 
of  the  federal  government  from  the  disposal  of  pub- 
lic and  Indian  lands  from  1785  to  1909  were  $423,- 
451,673.  The  money  is  gone.  It  has  been  ex- 
pended, wisely  or  miwisely,  with  other  treasury  re- 
ceipts. It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  much 
the  above  sum  exceeded  the  cost  of  administration. 
But  certain  limited  areas  of  lands  were  conveyed  to 
the  states  for  educational  purposes.  The  perman- 
ent common  school  funds,  state  and  local,  con- 
served by  the  states,  amount  to  $246,943,349.  The 
estimated  value  of  productive  school  lands  today  is 
$138,851,634,  and  of  unproductive  $86,347,482.  Add 
to  these  the  land  grant  funds  of  colleges  of  agricul- 
ture and  the  mechanic  arts,  and  the  total  is  nearly 
half  a  billion  dollars.  To  what  magnitude  these 
great  funds,  now  jealously  guarded,  for  educational 
purposes  by  the  states,  may  grow  in  time  we  cannot 
even  guess.  Some  may  eventually  provide  amply 
for  all  educational  needs  of  their  states  forever. 
This  is  one  telling  proof  of  the  superior  fidelity  of 
the  commonwealth  as  custodian  of  any  trust  for 
future  generations. 

There  remains  an  opportunity  and  a  need  of  con- 
servation transcending  in  value  all  others  com- 
bined. The  soil  is  the  ultimate  employer  of  all  in- 
dustry and  the  greatest  source  of  all  wealth.  It 
is  the  universal  banker.  Upon  the  maintenance 
unimpaired  in  quantity  and  quality  of  the  tillable 
area  of  the  country  its  whole  future  is  conditioned. 
Four  years  ago,  and  on  many  occasions  since,  I  pre- 
sented the  facts  and  statistics  that  make  land  con- 
servation incomparably  the  paramount  issue  with 
all  who  have  at  heart  the  prosperity  of  our  people 
and  the  permanence  of  our  institutions.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  repeat  in  detail  what  has  now  become 


matter  of  common  knowledge  and  is  accessible  to 
all.  For  the  last  ten  years  the  average  wheat  yield 
in  the  United  States  was  14.1  bushels,  w^hile  in 
Germany  it  was  28.7  and  in  the  United  Kingdom 
Z2.6.  This  is  a  measure  of  our  general  agriculture. 
The  cattle  other  than  milch  cows  on  farms  in  the 
United  States  are  over  4,000,000  fewer  than  they 
were  three  years  ago.  The  number  of  hogs  declined 
7,000,000  in  the  last  three  years  and  is  less  than  it 
was  twenty  years  ago.  The  increase  in  total  value 
of  food  products  is  due  to  a  great  extent  to  higher 
prices.  This  failure  to  conserve  soil  fertility  and 
maintain  the  agricultural  interest  is  expressed  in 
recent  changes  in  our  foreign  trade.  These  are  more 
than  mere  balance  sheets;  since,  as  you  know,  varia- 
tions in  international  trade  balances  may  produce 
wide-reaching  effects  upon  all  industry. 

While  our  totals  foreign  trade  last  year  was  only 
a  little  less  than  the  high  record  made  in  1907,  the 
distribution  of  it  was  vastly  different.  For  the 
last  fiscal  year  our  imports  were  nearly  $246,000,000 
in  excess  of  those  for  the  same  period  in  1909,  and 
$363,000,000  above  those  of  1908.  Our  exports  were 
more  by  $82,000,000  only  than  in  1909,  and  were 
nearly  $116,000,000  less  than  in  1908.  In  1908  the 
excess  of  exports  over  imports  was  $666,000,000;  by 
1910  it  had  fallen  to  $187,000,000.  We  are  buying 
more  lavishly  and  selling  less  because  there  is  less 
that  we  can  spare.  A  glance  at  the  following  table 
of  our  exports  for  the  last  five  years  in  three  great 
schedules  dependent  directly  upon  the  soil  tells  the 
whole  story: 

Meat  and  Dairy  Cattle,  Sheep 
Breadstuffs  Products  and  Hogs 

1906    1186,468,901  ^210,990,065  $43,516,258 

1907    184,120,702  202,392,508  35,617,074 

1908    215,260,588  192,802,708  30.235,621 

1909    159,929,221  166,521,949  18,556,736 

1910 .  133.191,330  130,632,783  12,456.10f 

9 


With  the  exception  of  the  increase  in  breadstuffs 
in  1907-8  caused  by  our  desperate  need  to  send 
something  abroad  that  would  bring  in  money  to 
stay  a  panic,  the  decline  is  constant  and  enormous. 
A  continuance  of  similar  conditions,  and  no  change 
is  in  sight,  must  mean  partial  food  famine  and  hard- 
ship prices  in  the  home  market ;  an  annual  indebted- 
ness abroad  which,  having  no  foodstuffs  to  spare, 
we  must  pay  in  cash;  and  financial  depression  and 
industrial  misfortune  because  we  have  drawn  too 
unwisely  upon  the  soil.  This  impending  misfortune 
only  the  conservation  of  a  neglected  soil,  and  all 
the  interests  connected  with  it  can  avert. 

The  saving  feature  of  the  situation  is  the  interest 
already  awakened  in  agricultural  improvement ;  an 
interest  which  it  should  be  the  first  object  of  this 
congress  to  deepen  and  preserve.  Much  has  been 
done,  but  it  is  only  a  beginning.  The  experiment 
station,  the  demonstration  farm,  agricultural  in- 
struction in  public  schools,  emphasis  upon  right  cul- 
tivation, seed  selection,  and  fertilization  through 
the  keeping  of  live  stock  are  slowly  increasing  the 
agricultural  product  and  raising  the  index  of  soil 
values.  But  the  work  moves  more  slowly  than  our 
needs.  The  possibilities  are  so  great.  One  might 
make  the  comparison  with  current  agriculture  else- 
where almost  at  random,  since  European  Russia  is 
the  only  first-class  country  more  backward  than 
our  own.  Take  the  smallest  and  what  might  be 
supposed  the  least  promising  illustration. 

Denmark's  area  is  about  twice  that  of  Massa- 
chusetts. It  is  occupied  by  more  than  two  and  a 
half  milHon  people.  This  Jutland  was  originally 
land  of  inferior  fertility.  What  has  been  done  with 
it?  Denmark  is  now  called  "the  model  farm  of 
Europe."     Her   exports   of   horses,   cattle,   bacon 

10 


and  lard,  butter  and  eggs  amounted  in  1908  to 
nearly  $89,000,000.  Mr.  Frederic  C.  Howe,  in  a 
recent  article,  says:  'The  total  export  trade  is 
approximately  $380  for  every  farm,  of  which 
133,000  of  the  250,000  are  of  less  than  13>4  acres 
in  extent,  the  average  of  all  the  farms  being  but 
43  acres  for  the  entire  country.  The  export  busi- 
ness alone  amounts  to  nine  dollars  per  acre,  in 
addition  to  the  domestic  consumption,  as  well  as 
the  support  of  the  farmer  himself."  One-half  the 
population  are  depositors  in  the  savings  banks,  with 
an  average  deposit  of  $154.  How  have  these  things 
been  accomplished? 

First,  negatively,  it  has  not  been  done  by  any  ar- 
tificial means  or  legislative  hocus-pocus.  No 
bounty  and  no  subsidy  has  any  share  in  the  national 
prosperity.  The  ruler  of  the  country  is  the  small 
farmer.  He  cultivates  his  acres  as  we  cultivate  a 
garden.  He  raises  everything  that  belongs  to  the 
land.  He  fertilizes  it  by  using  every  ounce  of  ma- 
terial from  his  live  stock  and  by  purchasing  more 
fertilizers  when  necessary.  There  are  42  high 
schools  and  29  agricultural  colleges  in  this  little 
state,  with  a  population  less  than  that  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  1900.  Whatever  else  they  teach,  agri- 
culture is  taught  first,  last  and  all  the  time,  to 
young  and  old  alike.  The  Dane  is  a  farmer  and  is 
proud  of  it.  England  and  Ireland  and  Germany 
are  studying  his  methods  today.  No  people  could 
imitate  them  with  more  profit  than  our  own. 

Recent  good  years  have  brought  the  average 
wheat  yield  per  acre  in  the  United  States  up  to 
over  fourteen  bushels.  Twice  that  would  be  con- 
sidered poor  in  Great  Britain  and  an  average  crop 
in  Germany.  Therefore  twenty-five  bushels  per 
acre  is  a  reasonable  possibility  for  us.     Suppose 


we  raised  it.  The  present  wheat  acreage  of  the 
United  States  is  about  46,500,000  acres  on  the  aver- 
age. If  it  gave  25  bushels  per  acre,  the  crop  would 
amount  to  1,162,500,000  bushels.  At  our  present 
rate  of  production  and  consumption  wt  may  cease 
to  be  a  wheat  exporting  nation  within  the  next  ten 
or  fifteen  years,  perhaps  earlier.  With  the  larger 
yield  we  could  supply  all  our  own  wants  and  have 
a  surplus  of  400,000,000  bushels  for  export.  This 
is  no  fancy  picture,  but  a  statement  of  plain  fact. 
Is  there  any  other  field  where  conservation  could 
produce  results  so  immense  and  so  important?  Is 
there  any  other  where  it  bears  so  directly  upon  our 
economic  future,  the  stability  of  our  government, 
the  well-being  of  our  people? 

Any  survey  of  practical  conservation  would  be 
imperfect  if  it  omitted  the  almost  desperate  neces- 
sity at  this  time  of  conserving  capital  and  credit. 
This  subject  deserves  full  and  separate  treatment. 
No  more  is  possible  here  than  to  summarize  some 
of  the  facts  and  conclusions  presented  by  me  to 
the  conservation  conference  that  assembled  in  this 
city  a  few  months  ago.  Conservation  of  cash  and 
credit  is  important  to  the  farmer  as  it  saves  or 
wastes  results  of  his  work  and  his  work  furnishes 
the  greater  part  of  the  nation's  wealth.  Our  states, 
including  cities  and  minor  civil  subdivisions,  have 
run  in  debt  about  three  quarters  of  a  billion  dollars 
in  the  last  twelve  years.  PubHc  expenditure  is 
increasing  everywhere.  Public  economy  is  a  virtue 
either  lost  or  despised.  From  1890  to  1902  the  ag- 
gregate expenditures  of  all  the  states  increased  103 
per  cent.  Boston's  tax  levy,  says  Brooks  Adams  in 
a  late  article,  including  this  among  the  serious  prob- 
lems of  modern  civilization,  was  $3.20  per  head  in 
1822,  while  now  it  is  nearly  $30.    The  per  capita  cost 

12 


of  maintaining  the  federal  government  was  $2.14 
in  1800,  $4.75  in  1890,  $6.39  in  1900  and  $7.56  in 
1908.  The  total  appropriations  voted  by  congress 
for  the  four  years  from  1892  to  1896  were  $1,871,- 
509,578.  For  the  four  years  from  1904  to  1908  they 
were  $3,842,203,577.  An  increase  of  $2,000,000,000 
in  expense  for  two  four  year  periods  with  only  eight 
years  between  them  should  give  any  people  pause. 
Spendthrift  man  and  spendthrift  nation  must  face 
at  last  the  same  law  and  the  same  penalty.  If  any 
one  believes  that  this  growth  of  expenditure  is  a 
consequence  of  the  general  material  growth  of  the 
country,  let  him  study  the  following  brief  table  of 
comparative  statistics.  It  establishes  the  indict- 
ment of  national  extravagance: 

Increases. 

Wealth    1870  to  1890  116:^%  1890  to  1904    65.0% 

Foreign  Trade  1870  to  1890    99.0%  1890  to  1908    85.4% 

Value  Manufactured  Prod.. .  .1870  to  1890  121.0%  1890  to  1905    58.0% 

Net  Ordinary  Exp.  U.  S.  Govt.  1870  to  1890      1.4%  1890  to  1908  121.4% 

Expenditures  30  States 1890  to  1909  201,6% 

This  debauch  of  capital  and  credit  has  sent  a 
poison  circulating  through  the  veins  of  the  nation. 
Everywhere  the  individual  imitates  the  profligacy 
of  his  government.  Industry  and  saving  are  at  a 
discount.  Any  luxury,  any  extravagance  is  w^ar- 
ranted  if  funds  for  it  can  be  raised  by  wasting  capi- 
tal or  creating  debt.  There  is  just  so  much  less 
money  for  productive  employment ;  for  payrolls  and 
the  extension  of  commerce  and  industries  and  the 
creation  of  those  new  faciHties  for  want  of  which 
the  commerce  of  the  country  is  and  always  must 
be  limited.  Hence  come  also  high  prices,  curtail- 
ment of  business,  distrust  and  eventual  distress. 
Hence  come  waste  and  idleness  and  the  increased 
cost  of  production  that  makes  both  business  and 
employment  slow  and  insecure.    Any  conservation 

13 


movement  worthy  of  the  name  must  place  high 
upon  its  program  the  saving  of  capital  and  credit 
from  the  rapacious  hands  of  socialist  as  well  as 
monopolist.  Extravagance  is  undermining  the  in- 
dustry of  this  country  as  surely  as  the  barbarians 
broke  down  and  looted  that  mighty  empire  with 
whose  civilization  and  progress  Ferrero  repeatedly 
insists  that  ours  has  so  much  in  common. 

We  must  stand  for  conservation  everywhere;  in 
the  tedious  as  well  as  in  the  interesting  applica- 
tion ;  where  it  cuts  into  our  pleasures  and  habits  and 
jostles  our  comfortable,  easy-going  ways  of  thought 
just  as  firmly  as  where  it  is  hand  in  glove  with  self- 
interest.  This  is,  above  all  things,  an  economic 
question.  It  is  neither  personal  nor  political.  In 
such  petty  and  partial  interests  it  has  found  its 
worst  obstructions  and  encountered  its  most  serious 
reverses. 

The  tariff  in  some  respects  is  a  great  enemy  of 
conservation.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  it  as  a 
general  industrial  policy,  every  one  can  see  that,  by 
excluding  the  raw  products  of  other  countries,  it 
throws  the  entire  burden  of  their  consumption  upon 
our  own  resources  and  thus  exhausts  them  unneces- 
sarily. This  appears  clearly  when  we  consider  such 
commodities  as  we  might  obtain  from  Canada,  a 
country  that  gained  nearly  400,000  immigrants 
from  the  United  States  in  the  nine  years  up  to 
April,  1909,  and  has  probably  taken  another  hun- 
dred thousand  since;  a  country  where  it  is  absurd 
to  talk  about  any  actual  advantage  in  the  wage  scale 
as  compared  with  our  own.  The  tariff'  on  forest 
products  cuts  down  our  own  forests,  a  tariff  on  coal 
depletes  our  mines,  a  tariff  on  any  raw  material  for- 
bids the  conservation  of  similar  natural  resources 
here. 

14 


This  congress  announced  from  the  first  its  pur- 
pose to  deal  with  the  subject  of  conservation  in  a 
practical  spirit.  The  present  condition  of  the  move- 
ment, now  in  the  third  stage  of  its  development, 
demands  it.  We  have  to  apply  the  conservation 
principle,  as  we  have  eventually  to  apply  every 
other,  to  our  domestic  economics;  to  work  it  out 
in  the  experience  and  practice  of  everyday  life. 
How  this  may  be  done  can  be  stated  in  the  form 
of  a  few  conclusions  that  raise  the  word  conserva- 
tion from  the  name  of  a  more  or  less  vague,  diffuse 
and  disputable  theory  to  that  of  a  practical  guide 
to  legislation  and  administration. 

Conservation  is  wholly  an  economic,  not  in  any 
sense  a  political  principle.  The  nation  has  suffered 
and  still  suft'ers  so  much  from  transferring  other 
economic  questions  to  politics  that  the  mistake 
should  not  be  repeated.  Whoever  attempts  to 
make  conservation  the  bone  of  a  personal  contro- 
versy or  the  beast  of  burden  to  carry  any  faction 
into  power  or  popularity  is  its  worst  enemy. 

"Conservative"  is  the  adjective  corresponding  to 
the  noun  "conservation."  Any  other  attitude  to- 
ward this  movement,  either  radical  or  reactionary, 
is  treason  to  its  name  and  to  its  spirit.  It  should 
mean  no  more  and  no  less  than  dealing  with  our 
resources  in  a  spirit  of  intelligence,  honesty,  care 
for  both  the  present  and  the  future,  and  ordinary 
business  common  sense. 

Conservation  does  not  mean  forbidding  access 
to  resources  that  could  be  made  available  for  pres- 
ent use.  It  means  the  freest  and  largest  develop- 
ment of  them  consistent  w^ith  the  public  interest 
and  without  waste.  A  bag  of  gold  buried  in  the 
earth  is  useless  for  any  purpose.     So  is  an  acre 


15 


untilled,  a  mine  unopened,  a  forest  that  bars  the 
way  to  homes  and  human  happiness. 

The  determination  in  each  case  as  to  what  extent 
a  given  resource  should  be  utiHzed  and  how  far 
reserved  for  the  future  is  an  intensely  practical,  in- 
dividual, and  above  all  it  is  a  local  question.  It 
should  be  carefully  considered  in  all  its  aspects 
by  both  nation  and  state,  and  should  finally  rest 
within  lines  determined  by  proper  legislation,  as 
far  as  may  be  under  the  control  of  local  authority. 
Experience  proves  that  resources  are  not  only  best 
administered  but  best  protected  from  marauders 
by  the  home  peopleVho  are  most  deeply  interested 
and  who  are  just  as  honest,  just  as  patriotic  and 
infinitely  better  informed  on  local  conditions  than 
the  national  government  can  possibly  be.  It  is 
clear  that  every  one  of  the  many  problems  all  over 
the  country  can  be  better  understood  where  they 
are  questions  of  the  lives  and  happiness  of  those 
directly  interested. 

Behind  this,  as  behind  every  great  economic  issue, 
stand  moral  issues.  Shall  we,  on  the  one  side,  deny 
to  ourselves  and  our  children  access  to  the  same 
store  of  natural  wealth  by  which  we  have  won  our 
own  prosperity,  or,  on  the  other,  leave  it  unpro- 
tected as  in  the  past  against  the  spoiler  and  the  thief  ? 
Shall  we  abandon  everything  to  centralized  au- 
thority, going  the  way  of  every  lost  and  ruined 
government  in  the  history  of  the  world,  or  meet 
our  personal  duty  by  personal  labor  through  the 
organs  of  local  self-government,  not  yet  wholly 
atrophied  by  disuse?  Shall  w^e  permit  our  single 
dependence  for  the  future,  the  land,  to  be  defer- 
tilized  below  the  point  of  profitable  cultivation  and 
gradually  abandoned,  or  devote  our  whole  energy 
to  the  creation  of  an  agriculture  which  will  furnish 

16 


wealth  renewed  even  more  rapidly  than  it  can  be 
exhausted?  Shall  we  permit  the  continued  increase 
of  public  expenditure  and  public  debt  until  capital 
and  credit  have  suffered  in  the  same  conflict  that 
overthrew  prosperous  and  happy  nations  in  the 
past,  or  insist  upon  a  return  to  honest  and  prac- 
ticable economy?  This  is  the  battle  of  the  ages, 
the  old,  familiar  issue.  Is  there  in  the  country  that 
intelligence,  that  self-denial,  that  moral  courage 
and  that  patriotic  devotion  which  alone  can  bring 
us  safely  through? 

I  ask  these  questions  not  because  there  is  any 
doubt  of  the  answer  in  the  minds  of  the  American 
people,  but  that  it  may  be  made  plain  what  a  com- 
plex fabric  the  fates  are  weaving  from  the  appar- 
ently commonplace  happenings  of  our  peaceful 
years,  and  how  each  generation  and  each  epoch 
must  render  an  account  for  the  work  of  its  own 
days.  The  unprecedented  dignity  of  this  assem- 
blage, its  national  representative  character,  the 
presence  here  of  those  upon  whom  great  occasions 
wait,  the  interest  felt  by  millions  who  look  to  it  for 
information  and  guidance,  prove  how  deep  beneath 
the  surface  lie  the  sources  of  its  existence  and  its 
influence.  Out  of  the  conservation  movement  in 
its  practical  application  to  our  common  life  may 
come  wealth  greater  than  could  be  won  by  the  over- 
throw of  kingdoms  and  the  annexation  of  prov- 
inces; national  prestige  and  individual  well-being; 
the  gift  of  broader  mental  horizons ;  and,  best  and 
most  necessary  of  all,  the  quahty  of  a  national  citi- 
zenship which  has  learned  to  rule  its  own  spirit 
and  to  rise  by  the  control  of  its  own  desires. 


17 


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